


the living are being killed by the dead ones

by sangriche



Series: from the gods who sit in grandeur grace is somehow violent [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Ballroom Dancing, Dark Abigail Hobbs, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Family Fluff, Gen, Hannibal Lecter is a Softie, Hannibal and Will love Abigail, Happy Murder Family, Lesbian Abigail Hobbs, M/M, Married Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Murder Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Victorian vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangriche/pseuds/sangriche
Summary: In the years since Will Graham’s Becoming, his little family has found it’s stride. They enjoy the anonymity of London and the grandeur of the fin de siècle, the end of the 19th century. One thing still bothers Will. Why won't Hannibal let their daughter join them in forever?
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: from the gods who sit in grandeur grace is somehow violent [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141667
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	1. wisdom won from pain

Will’s thoughts churned as he chopped basil for the pie. 

It would be five years, this year. Five years since Will had thrown himself off of a cliff in a foolish attempt to… to do what? He still wasn’t sure. Five years since they had abandoned Baltimore for the metropolis of London and decided to settle down. It was nice with just the three of them, that was true; just Hannibal, Abigail, and himself. The measures Hannibal had taken to save Will from the sea had brought them closer, as close as they could ever be, but it had put the greatest chasm of all between them and Abigail. Hannibal could build the bridge at any time, carry her over gently and make their family whole forever. Will could even do it, he was fairly certain, if Hannibal had not forbidden it until the right time. 

Will continued to chop, moving on to thyme. The sharp scent immediately assaulted him. Hannibal continued his preparations, humming quietly to the Chopin wafting through the air. 

This was how it always was, Hannibal at the large counter, he at the smaller, portable one. A fire would blaze, especially in winter. Hannibal would put on wax cylinders, whatever was in vogue and within reach. Hannibal hated the silence, so why not fill it with the latest technological innovations? 

“What are you thinking about?” Hannibal’s voice pulled Will from the aromatic green pile under his hands. “Tell me, please. You know it’s the one thing I cannot stand.” 

“If you hated it so much you shouldn’t have done it.” The current wax cylinder had stopped. They festered in silence. 

“I did not know it would—”

Will placed his knife on the table. “But you did know, Hannibal. You knew! You can lie and tell me you never knew who did this to you and that you had to learn without guidance. You can lie, but you cannot lie to me anymore.” 

Hannibal said nothing for a very long time. Rarely was he held so accountable, until this man — this boy, really — decided he should be the one to take up that mantle. If he had to admit, Hannibal didn’t mind. It was as if he were the only one in the world who knew how to play chess, and when he found Will, he found someone with a board and as much potential for greatness as himself. 

Hannibal moved to the opposite side of Will’s counter, placing both hands on either side of the wood. Hannibal’s hands were sticky with the viscera of fresh meat, flour, dough and everything else for the perfect steak and kidney pie. Despite this, his white shirt and apron were perfectly clean. Will’s hands, however, were stained with basil, thyme, rosemary. Earthy herbs clung under his fingernails and drops of juices from chopping had found their way to his shirt. 

“I had a suspicion, yes,” Hannibal began, “But don’t you prefer it that way? I can no longer violate the privacy of your mind. We are equals. It’s all I ever wanted for you. You wanted it too, begged for it. And besides, you were dying, remember?”

“You wanted this since the beginning?” Will’s voice had gone quiet. His thoughts resumed their white-water breakneck pace. 

Hannibal was right. Will had begged to be saved after their tumble into the Atlantic. He knew no man could rip into another the way Hannibal had Francis Dolarhyde, not without preternatural assistance. He’d read "Lenore, " _The Vampyre_ , even _Carmilla_. Will knew, he had only chosen not to see, not until he had woken up after their fall in a plush bed, the curtains drawn tight over the windows and the metallic odor of blood hanging in the air so thick it was like part of the décor. He would later learn he was in London, far enough from Baltimore in this day and age that he and Hannibal had turned to smoke. 

The scent had been more than décor, though, it had roused a primal hunger in Will, more feral than any lust at a crime scene or murder. It smelled like metal and white funeral lilies and roast goose on Christmas. Hannibal had explained everything. Will had nearly drowned on top of severe hypothermia, not to mention God knows how many injuries dealt by Dolarhyde and the sea. Hannibal had felt the only option was to make him in his image, a vampire. Ever the gentleman however, Hannibal had possessed the decency to ask Will’s permission, more or less coerced as it was. 

“Does Abigail know?” Will had asked one day, examining the slash on his cheek. Hannibal had laughed so genuinely when Will discovered he still had a reflection (“All of my utensils in Baltimore were silver, Will, why would the backing of a mirror stop me?”). The slash was white-pink now, nearly gone. Soon, his body would retain almost no memory of the Dragon. Hannibal had said it would likely disappear completely in time, or at least leave a more attractive scar. 

“Of course she knows,” he had replied. He didn’t even look up from his newspaper. Will remembered staring at the headline: “2nd September, 1888: 3RD GRISLEY MURDER IN WHITECHAPEL.”

“Will, please, I would never butcher my meat so amateurly.” Hannibal had turned a page lazily. “Besides, this is most certainly a copycat.” 

“Is she…”

“Not yet,” Hannibal had finished, “but she will be. She’s still too young, I think. I want her to live a little more. She must be able to survive on her own if we are ever separated.” 

“She doesn’t mind?”

“Why would she? We are only slightly better than her father.”

The barking of several dogs brought Will back to the present moment.

“Fathers! I have something for you!” Abigail’s voice floated into the kitchen, the click of heeled boots on wood floors trailing her like an echo. 

“We shall discuss this later. I don’t want to upset our daughter.” 

Hannibal’s expression melted the moment Abigail entered. Her cheeks and hair were wind-ravaged, and her gloved hands laden with packages. If anyone had changed more than Will since they had become a family, it was Hannibal. Will never thought he would see the man so radiant, and with love for a child no less. Though he couldn’t hear his maker’s thoughts, Will thought this paternal instinct was genuine. 

“What do you have for us, my dear?” Hannibal asked, taking a box and shaking it. 

“Ah! No!” she chastised, “ _That_ is a present! _These_ are for dinner tonight.” Abigail produced two large, cylindrical objects wrapped in brown butcher’s paper. 

“My dear, your father and I have very keen senses,” Hannibal smirked. Will couldn’t help but join their playful exchange as a warm, spiced scent greeted him. 

Abigail grinned, tugging off her scarf, overcoat, and gloves before tucking her hands behind her back. She bounced on the balls of her feet, the petticoats swishing with the movement. Will noticed that snow still clung to the dark green tartan of her dress and what hadn’t melted fluttered to the floor. 

The parcels revealed large glass jars of blood, human, judging by the intoxicating fragrance. Both men looked at her in shock. The question was posed on their lips. They weren’t above murder, clearly, but they _never_ involved their daughter. 

“Don’t worry, I had an extra rotation at St. Thomas’. They were dying. No case, I promise.” 

“Abigail,” Hannibal began. 

“You didn’t have to…” Will attempted to finish. 

Abigail deflated. “You’re displeased? I wanted us to have a proper holiday.” 

“Darling,” said Will. 

“Dearest,” said Hannibal. They shared the minute glance that only parents had the ability to share. 

“We love this gift, and we will not waste it.” Will began.

“But you must never involve yourself in our affairs again, not while you are still separated from us,” Hannibal’s tone was equal to Will’s; steady, calm, never angry. 

“We are not angry, Abigail, we promise,” Will chanced a look at her eyes. Anyone else would mistake the flush in her nose and cheeks for wind-burn, but her father saw the tears threatening to rise in her eyes. 

“Come here,” he beckoned, stretching one hand out across the parcels. “We’re making steak and kidney pie.”

Abigail sniffed (from being outdoors, of course), and buried herself in her fathers’ embraces. Like chocolates left in a tin of assorted sweets, they had absorbed the scents of the kitchen. Hannibal smelled faintly of raw meat, pepper. Will smelled of thyme, basil. 

“You’re warm,” she remarked, earning a downcast grin from Will that put the slightest hint of a blush on his cheek. 

“We’ve been in the kitchen, and you’ve been out freezing your beautiful face,” Hannibal offered a toothy grin before returning to his work. 

“You can help in a little while if you like, but you know the rules,” Hannibal continued, as Will helped Abigail gather her things. 

It wasn’t a suggestion; she always helped prepare the lavish meals her fathers insisted upon making. If she could, that is. Certain occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries dictated her banishment from the kitchen. Abigail had initially protested this grandeur. It seemed unfair that the two men who could hardly eat should prepare such feasts for her. She was assured the leftovers always went to their staff. Epiphany was one such holiday where she was banished, either entirely or almost entirely. 

While much of London happened to be protestant, and the catholic population was small, Abigail’s family was neither. Epiphany was sacred to their family in ways unlike others. It was the day Will decided to join their family. Thus, it was possibly the holiest day in the Lecter-Graham calendar, aside from the day Hannibal brought Will into the darkness to him. That was the day their lives truly began, and therefore called for the most ostentatious of celebrations. They held parties, balls really, and Abigail was always given horribly expensive presents: a new dress, jewelry, first editions of Marcus Aurelius in the original Latin, anything she asked for, except for the one thing she truly wanted. 

“It’s been five years. She’s twenty-four, Hannibal. I think it’s time. Why not on Epiphany?” Will spoke into the beginnings of a hot water crust. Hannibal hardly trusted him with much else (even if Will swore his new condition improved his cooking skills). 

“I am capable of arithmetic, Will.” The sound of carrots being chopped. Hannibal wished they were someone’s fingers. They continued in frustrated silence, as men are wont to do. 

Hannibal enjoyed cooking, but it was not the same as cooking before some listless ghoul snatched him up in Florence and unmade him. He had found himself in a near-suicidal crisis after his transformation. What would he do if he could not consume the livestock of the world, body and soul? Blood was insubstantial in comparison, until he discovered the value of human friendship and breaking bread with one’s fellow man. Things changed yet again, when he built his family. He’d heard that fatherhood changes a man, but he never believed it until he was petting sweet, angelic Abigail’s raven hair in the middle of his kitchen, taking in her overpowering human scent by the lungful. If this child told him to make her only lamb, beef, pork, or any other animal on the earth, or else she would starve herself and die, Hannibal would. And he did. After her birth father’s crimes, Hannibal dared not deceive her again, not when blood had become enough. 

“We must talk about this.” 

“We have.” Carrots. Fingers. One and the same. Hannibal wished he had put on another wax cylinder. It was unbearably quiet. Will’s anger was too loud for him right now.

“Surely you see the pain she carries, Dr. Lecter,” Will moved closer. “You’ve met younger, you told me yourself. She will have the best fathers to guide her. What worry is there?”

Carrots, fingers. Hannibal recalled learning in various medical schools that, were it not for our minds, we would be able to bite off our own fingers as if it were a carrot. If only every difficulty in life were solved by a simple trick of the mind. 

“I don’t want to do it,” he looked up at Will. “I don’t know if I can.” 

If a cylinder had been playing, it would have stopped. The pot of soup above the fire bubbled as the flames licked the copper kettle. Somewhere in the house, water dripped from a washroom tap, a page turned as a book was read. Hannibal’s meaning shocked Will like a lungful of ice water or hot tar.

“You don’t want to be separated from her.”

“Will.”

“You can’t bear the thought of never knowing her every wish, whim, and fancy again, is that it?” Will picked up the closest knife and stabbed it into— the cutting board. Hannibal had dodged the attack and driven his own knife through Will’s shirtsleeve (and arm) before Will could even react. 

“Will!”

Hannibal drew himself up to tower over Will. “Listen to me, for fuck’s sake, before I must contaminate the rest of our daughter’s dinner.”

He pulled the knife out almost too forcefully while Will clamped a hand over his arm to staunch the bleeding. 

“I cannot hear Abigail’s thoughts.” Hannibal hung his head over the carrot slices. There was only a little blood. He pushed the clean and ruined pieces to either end of the cutting board to further separate them. “Why do you think I was so interested in her? When we are all together, I can forget what we are, or pretend she is like us, if only for a moment.”

“Even then, I don’t know if I have the strength to put her through that agony.” He cut a glance at Will. Every hurt held within him suddenly seemed to weigh on him all at once. 

Will said nothing for several moments. He only moved to place his hand in Hannibal’s, stroking patterns across the back with his thumb. The stab wound had long since healed, any spark of anger dying with it. Hannibal’s age had granted him a power rarely bestowed on someone as young as Will, so he had always assumed Hannibal was very good at it, or no human was capable of resisting, at least. 

“Hannibal,” _look at me_ , Will pleaded. “You have me now. We can do it together. You aren’t alone in this world anymore. You will never be alone again. Abigail, our daughter, loves you. _I_ love you.”

“I’ve loved you ever since…” Will grew quiet. “I don’t know. It feels like since the beginning of time.”

Hannibal looked from Will, to the carrots, then back again. “I’ve been told vampires know their mates long before creation.” A smug grin curled Hannibal’s lips. Will had a mind to slap it off.

“We were two gods reaching out to each other from infinity and finally touching.” Hannibal kissed the back of Will’s hand, taking in the scent of herbs, almost tasting them. “I’ve loved you since the beginning too. I came to love our daughter just as much.”

He looked up at Will before straightening. “I don’t want to hurt her. I can’t imagine it.”

Will rested his hands on Hannibal’s waist and pulled him close, right at the apron, right where he could stay out of trouble with his filthy hands.

“You cannot offend someone by giving them a gift they have pleaded for,” Will whispered. 

“You don’t remember the pain, Will. It is excruciating.” 

Will gave him a look. _Does she know this?_

Hannibal huffed through his nose. _Of course._

“I even used a mind trick on her—” Will withered in horror— “with her permission, and she withstood that mild pain.” 

Will bit down the urge to ask when exactly this had happened, given Hannibal’s seemingly unshakable disdain in making any more vampires. 

“There you have it then. You’ve already bought her gifts for Epiphany. Make them her birthday gifts since you were undecided on which one. Saves the trouble of returning one to the shops. And just think, won’t it make this day more significant, my dear? The day we became a permanent family?” 

“I will let you believe you have this hold over me. Very well, tonight. We shall tell her at dinner. This must be perfect, Will.” Hannibal leveled a stern glance he hadn’t used since Baltimore. “I want my medical bag prepared. Send Karolina home early, tell her she has the next week off, as thanks for good work during the holidays.”

Will’s heart jumped with the sudden excitement. He pulled Hannibal down for a chaste kiss before leaving him to finish dinner. 

Completing Hannibal’s tasks was easy enough. Karolina was easy to find. The woman seemed to perpetually clean, not that the three of them minded. She was dismissed, and on to Will and Hannibal’s bedroom. 

The bag was exactly where it was supposed to be: top shelf of the wardrobe, to the right. The last time it had been used was three weeks ago, when Abigail had sliced her finger in the kitchen. Will had been amazed then, just as he had the first time, nevermind that these kitchen accidents occurred frequently in the overall scheme. The first time, Will had to leave. He was young, and it had been too much. Over time, he could stand in the far corner of the room, watching anxiously as Hannibal exerted an inhuman level of restraint. Hannibal would always kiss the wound with it’s fresh dressings, capturing Abigail’s attention right until the moment he would lunge for whichever finger was injured, eliciting girlish shrieks from Abigail. Rather than scorn this, Abigail would still request a kiss even as she became a woman. Hannibal was too much of a gentleman to turn a lady down, and would kiss the back of her hand as if he were kissing a queen’s rings. 

Will took the opportunity alone to change for dinner. An emerald waistcoat seemed particularly appropriate this year. 

This years’ gifts were removed from their hiding place at the bottom of a dresser drawer, already perfectly wrapped in white paper with red ribbon. Will had found a special edition of Shelley and Keats, collected shortly after Shelly’s death and printed in Rome. Hannibal’s gift was an heirloom from Lithuania: a human-bone handled dagger, encrusted with rubies, pearls, gold, and the Lecter crest engraved on the scabbard. Their joint piece-de-resistance was a locket with oil portraits of their eyes. Hannibal, brown-black on the right, and Will, stormy-blue on the left, would perpetually gaze at each other in the locket’s confines. Hannibal was nervous about the dagger, that it was a relic rather than new, and had commissioned the locket in a spell of anxiety. Now, three gifts was perfect instead of the usual two. Their daughter should be the most spoiled as possible if she was to join them tonight. 

Satisfied, Will left the gifts near the loveseat in the parlor, hid Hannibal’s bag, and returned to the kitchen. He found dinner nearly ready judging by the smell and another wax cylinder playing something lively. 

He also found Hannibal dancing with Abigail in the middle of the kitchen.

“No, no, my _mieloji_ ,” Hannibal laughed, “this is a waltz! One-two-three, one-two- _three_!”

They had both changed for dinner. The burgundy silk of Abigail's dress was shocking against the white tile of the kitchen, like spilled blood on snow. It was more shocking in contrast with Hannibal’s suit that was such a dark blue it was almost black. What surprised Will the most, however, was not his daughter nor lover’s bold color palettes. Ever since they had become a family again, she’d worn her hair in variations on the same style that always bordered on completely down and unadorned. Now, Abigail’s hair was entirely swept up and away from her face. Pearled pins that matched the lace at the top of her dress held her hair in place. As she and Hannibal attempted to dance in time, what remained of her left ear was on full display. 

Abigail stepped on his toes and tripped on the hem of her skirts in giggling fits several times before Will was noticed at the door. 

“Will!” She called, “come tell Father he’s a failure of a count for never teaching me how to dance!”

“I’m afraid it’s true.” Hannibal flashed Will a roguish grin and extended his hand. “Why don’t we demonstrate?”

Abigail dutifully restarted the cylinder, and Hannibal began leading at once. Will was not as experienced as Hannibal by any means, but he could hold his own. The gift of supernatural grace certainly did him some favors as well. Will could feel Abigail’s eyes on them as they glided across the kitchen tiles in perfect time. As the cylinder ended, Hannibal dipped Will into a quick kiss, bringing as hot of a blush as possible to his cheeks. 

Will caught his daughter’s sly grin from behind her hand as Hannibal shepherded them to the dining room. 

The gas lamps had been turned low for the evening, replaced by two of the largest candelabras in the household (electric light was one innovation Hannibal largely refused to adopt). Wax had only just started to pool at the wicks when Hannibal seated Abigail at the head of the table. Will followed suit to her left, unfolding his napkin as he sat down. Hannibal left to serve, though not before placing a kiss on the crown of Abigail’s head and giving the smallest of smiles to Will. 

Will turned to the fire at the far end of the room, distracted by the thunderous crackling that suddenly sounded very much like certain rainy nights in Baltimore.

A small, hot weight on his hand pulled him into the dining room again. 

“Father? Are you all right?”

Will muttered a noncommittal noise or phrase which seemed to placate her. Ever his savior, Hannibal returned with a steaming dish. 

“Steak and kidney pie with carrots, potato, and mushroom in a basil and thyme crust.”

Will half-heartedly wished he could still eat as Hannibal sliced into the pie, releasing more aromatic steam into the air. However, the smile that crinkled Hannibal’s eyes and threatened to bear suspiciously pointed canines could have fed Will for a decade. 

“Where is your dinner?” Abigail asked before the slice of pie had even hit her plate. 

“We never— not in front of you, dear.” Hannibal’s brow furrowed. 

“It’s Epiphany, and I don’t mind. Aren’t I old enough?” She chanced a look at Will. If he agreed, she had won. 

Will looked to Hannibal, knife in hand still dripping with pie. Hannibal lost.

“If the lady insists, I don’t see why not.”

With a host’s flourish, and perhaps preternatural assistance, Hannibal left and returned with Abigail’s present decanted into a piece of red cut crystal. He placed glasses that matched the decanter before himself and Will, and once they had been served, placed the decanter out of sight on the sideboard. A smaller decanter of wine had been left on the table.

This spectacle did not go unnoticed by the three of them, but Hannibal was allowed his particulars. 

They let Abigail chatter as she ate, exchanging small tones or sentences to facilitate conversation. They largely chose to drink in her excitement and love rather than sip from their glasses. 

Long after Abigail had eaten her fill, her cheeks had grown ruddy, and the candles had shortened, Hannibal cleared his throat. 

“Presents then?”

Abigail muttered something about nearly forgetting, and they were expertly herded to the parlor by a smitten Hannibal. 

They moved to their places, a perfect spectacle performed countless times. Abigail in her armchair, Will and Hannibal hip to hip on the loveseat. The dogs found their places as well. Grim curled up at Abigail’s feet, while Faustus settled near Will, and Vlad near Hannibal. Abigail pulled two parcels from beneath her chair first, passing a box to Will and an envelope to Hannibal. 

Hannibal went first, revealing three tickets to the British Museum. 

“They have a new exhibition on classical antiquities. Alexander the Great, the Trojan war. I thought you might like it since the days are still short.”

“Abigail…” was all he could muster.

Will stood up and pressed a kiss into her hair. “Thank you dear.” He turned to Hannibal. “We haven’t been to the museum… ever, have we?”

He sat down and opened his gift, revealing a smaller, heart-shaped leather box surrounded by a handful of rice grains. 

“This one is more for the both of you too,” Abigail said, almost meekly.

Will’s hands shook as he unclasped the box and threw back the hinged lid. Two bands sat side by side, one silver, the other gold. He looked up at Abigail in shock. Hannibal swallowed. The extra rotations at the hospital suddenly made sense.

“Silver is yours, and gold for father,” she offered. 

If Will was shaking when he opened the box, he was trembling as he removed the gold ring — Hannibal’s ring — and passed the box to Hannibal. Will took a moment to inspect the band. Something had caught his eye: “ _Stabilitas,_ ” engraved against the inner band of the ring. He looked to Hannibal and found him reading an engraving in his own ring.

Hannibal looked up. “ _Pietas._ ” He turned to Abigail with the same disbelief Will had worn. Hannibal was always meant to be Will’s stability, and Will’s ardent devotion to anything or anyone he chose made it possible. 

“Well, go on then!” she smiled, a vision of warmth and radiance. She took advantage of their shock to remove the gift box (and the rice) from Will’s lap. 

“You first,” Hannibal croaked, holding the silver band aloft.

Will extended a left hand that trembled just as much as Hannibal’s. It was a miracle they got the ring on. It fit, unsurprisingly. Abigail had ways of sneaking around her supernatural parents. 

Hannibal’s hand shook just as much, if not more, as Will attempted to slide the gold band on. Again, it fit. He could hear his heart fluttering in his chest like Peter Bernadone’s bird and knew Hannibal’s would be the same, even if he couldn’t hear it over his own.

“You won’t kiss? You’re properly married now.” Abigail’s voice was like a thousand plates shattering, waves crashing, church bells ringing straight in their ears. 

They granted their daughter’s request, of course, and were met with a shower of rice grains, applause, and giggles. Even the dogs joined in the chaos of celebration, barking at the men and the mess on the floor. 

When they separated, a hot blush crept up Will’s neck, made hotter by the blood at dinner. Hannibal had already regained his composure to present Abigail with her gifts. He offered what he knew was the Shelley and Keats first, holding the rest captive in his lap. She was delighted with it, of course, giving Will’s cheek a kiss before Hannibal passed her the next parcel.

“I’m afraid it’s not as special as your father’s, but I hope you enjoy this family heirloom.”

Hannibal was anxiety-ridden as Abigail tore open the wrappings. His anxiety increased ten-fold as she traced her finger along the engravings. The twin wolves snarled at the coiled snake in the Lecter crest on the scabbard, while letters spelling out, “ _mylima_ ” were etched on the flat of the blade. 

“No,” she whispered, “these are both beautiful. Thank you both.”

“One more,” Will passed her the third parcel, “from us both.”

“But—” Abigail held the box as if it were an illusion. 

“We know our own rules,” Hannibal said, “but this was too special to pass up.”

Abigail sat back and hesitantly peeled the gift wrap away to uncover a large leather box not unlike the ring box she had given her fathers. As she lifted the lid, Will slipped his hand into Hannibal’s and gave a squeeze, stroking familiar rhythms with his thumb. This was more nerve-wracking than the rings by far, it had to be, most definitely. They watched still as corpses as Abigail gasped at the locket, holding it up by the chain to see it more clearly in the light. 

Hannibal had outdone himself. The outer case was gold, the front engraved with a portrait of the goddess Diana surrounded by her attributes, and the back featuring the death of Diana’s warrior princess devotee Camilla. A row of diamonds framed the front scene, while a Greek key engraving bordered Camilla. Abigail gasped again upon opening the locket. A masterful oil miniature of Hannibal’s right eye was done on Diana’s half of the locket. It gazed toward an equally beautiful rendering of Will’s left eye on Camilla’s side. The portraits were exact, down to the shadows Hannibal’s brow cast over his crow’s feet to Will’s dense, nearly feminine, eyelashes. 

Abigail’s hand covered her mouth as she examined the locket again, turning it over to read the engraving she’d missed the first time: “ _H.L. W.G. A.H. est. 1893._ ”

Time had never passed so unsteadily until the moment when Abigail read the current year on the locket to when she choked out a sob. Will and Hannibal both felt frozen, petrified, like frightened animals before a predator. When both men could move, they found themselves at either side of Abigail’s chair. Hannibal swallowed and his mouth gaped like a dying fish as he visibly fought wave upon wave of panic. 

“Is it wrong, Abigail?” Will was first to speak. It could have been half a second or half an hour since Abigail had first made the sound.

She shook her head and managed a laugh through several sniffles. She looked up at Will on her right, somehow still standing, then to Hannibal kneeling to her left. The dogs nudged them all in turn, worried. 

She gathered a hand from each of them to her lips, before bringing their hands against her chest as she spoke. “You are both ridiculous old men.” 

Will was first to return her smile. Hannibal remained confused and slightly panicked until Abigail fell to the floor and drew him into a deep embrace. 

“How could you ever think I would hate such a beautiful thing?” She asked into Hannibal’s neck, muffled by his arms wrapped around her. 

She pulled away, stretching a hand toward Will. “Papa, join us?” 

He would’ve done it even if she _hadn’t_ used that old girlish endearment. 

A spiced, heady scent flooded Will’s nose the instant Abigail rested her head against his chest, followed by the undercurrent of rose-scented hair pomade, and finishing with the heat of her body itself. He heard her silk skirt rustle, then he was aware of a larger, leaner presence behind him wrapping an arm around his middle and pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Abigail pulled them in even tighter when Hannibal joined. Will felt Hannibal’s chin come to rest against his back while Abigail wove her hands through the tangle of limbs to knot her fists in either of their vests.

When they parted, the three of them sat back a moment, all pensive. The dogs licked their palms, eager for an explanation to the commotion. A sniff from Hannibal drew their attention to the present, and Abigail offered a sniff in response as she drew her thumb across Hannibal’s cheek with a small smile. 

“We have just one more surprise,” Hannibal announced, taking Abigail’s hands in his. “Hopefully not as dramatic as the last.”

“What have you done?” Abigail quizzed. “This must be the most expensive Epiphany yet!”

“I had planned the locket for later this year, closer to October,” explained Hannibal as he crossed the room to his chair, “but your father convinced me to change my plans.” 

Will received beaming smiles from his beloveds as Hannibal expertly re-hid his doctor’s bag and sat back down on the floor near Abigail. He took her hands in his, completely covering them in a feeling like being in a cool cave. 

“Abigail,” he began, “I know you have wanted this for some time, and while I had my reasons at first, I believe I have been unfair lately. You are a grown woman, capable of navigating the world now with the skills we have taught you.” 

He gave a hesitant look to Will. Will returned the slightest of nods. “ _Mieloji_ ,” Hannibal’s voice turned low, faltering, “would you like to join your father and I, forever, tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **mieloji:** honey, darling, sweetheart  
>  **mylima:** beloved (I used the form the show used on Mischa’s grave in s3)  
>  **stabilitas (Latin):** stability in the physical sense or of the mind. Often given to sth else for support.  
>  **pietas (Latin):** lit. “piety,” but also respect for the “natural order” socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the idea of devotion to things and others.  
> The waltz they dance to is _Vienna Blood Waltz_ by Johann Strauss II  
> ***  
> I hope you enjoyed this AU! It honestly began as pure wish-fulfillment and my need to see Hannibal be nice to Abigail, which is why he's sort of ooc, lol. Do let me know if you'd like to see more! I have plans to make Hannibal more... himself. So many thanks to [Starstruckmoons,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruckmoons) [Sa00harine,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sa00harine) Arabella, and more!


	2. the creature drew in blood along with the milk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even goddesses must endure birthing pains.

Abigail’s eyes darted from Hannibal to Will and back again. 

“You mean it?” 

The pink scars at her throat jumped. Will absently wondered how she had survived the second time. Hannibal had said something once about the effects of vampire blood on human wounds. 

“Well, you don’t really have a choice, do you, dear?” Hannibal stood, then brought Abigail to her feet. He clapped his hands on her shoulders. 

“I’ve poisoned you.”

Will froze while Abigail shattered to the floor again. 

“Do you remember how Claudius Caesar died?” Hannibal asked as he removed his jacket and waistcoat. 

“His wife fed him poisoned mushrooms so Nero could become emperor,” Will murmured. 

“Precisely.” Hannibal grinned broadly, flashing his teeth. 

“Why?” Abigail paled, “I would’ve said yes anyway.” 

“Unfortunately,” Hannibal rolled up his sleeves, “there are rules even I must follow.”

“If we meet other vampires in the world, and they learn you were not made because you were on the brink of death, they will kill me, and your father. It is seen as a rare gift, not so easily given.” 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Will managed.

“You would’ve attempted to find some way out of it. This is the way it must be.” He was so matter-of-fact. And correct. 

“Why not when you cut my throat?” Abigail asked. They both turned toward her. Hannibal was surprisingly quiet. “You said I almost died then, and the time before, when my father did it.” 

“I did say that to you,” Hannibal admitted, “however, _I_ was confident I could save you. You do not practice as a physician for nearly four hundred years and remain mediocre. You were too young. I couldn’t condemn you to this life when yours had hardly been lived.”

Hannibal watched as Will and Abigail processed the wealth of information he had provided in such short sentences. He knew they were shocked by his age. He knew they had questions, wished to poke holes in his story of how he came to be, find some reason to hate him again for this deception. They would find nothing, of course. Certainly not later, when he had time to explain. 

Her shoulders slumped. “Just do it then. You’ve managed to spoil everything now.”

Oh, how Hannibal wished he could explain. He knelt before Abigail instead. 

“I must ask you something very important.” He gripped her by the shoulders, gently, enough to pull her eyes to his. “Would you rather someday read my thoughts, or Will’s? Whoever you choose, you will be barred from the other.” 

“You can’t read his thoughts?” She flicked her eyes to Will, who stood rigid at her side. She looked to Hannibal. “Can you read mine?”

Hannibal shook his head. “It happens sometimes, even I still don’t understand it.” 

“Would you be able to read mine?” She asked Will. 

He knelt down as well. “We don’t know.” 

“What if you both did it? Then I wouldn’t have to choose. You or… whatever changes me, chooses for me.”

Hannibal faltered. He had never considered the possibility, or what it could mean. However, that did not mean it couldn’t work. He was secretly very proud of Abigail. 

“I’ve never encountered it, but I don’t see why it couldn’t work. I think it’s an excellent idea. Will?”

Will blinked several times before providing a quick, “yes, of course.” 

Hannibal clapped his hands together. “It’s settled then.” 

He extended a hand toward their daughter. “We’ll help you get ready, Abigail. We don’t want your gown spoiled.” 

Hannibal could see the questions brewing, churning behind her eyes. _Why would my gown be spoiled?_ She did not ask. 

“It can be a messy process, the transformation,” Hannibal spoke like a doctor delivering a prognosis as he gathered his bag and the three of them walked to Abigail’s room. “You become a living corpse, with all that may entail.”

“He means you may shit and piss yourself,” Will offered. It stopped them all on the landing of the stairs, and earned Will a disgusted look from Abigail and a shocked one from Hannibal. 

“That is one way of putting it,” Hannibal quipped. 

“Will I— shit and piss myself?” Abigail looked from Hannibal to Will, then back again. 

“Not unless you do beforehand. Your father did not have that luxury.” 

Abigail attempted to choke down a laugh, and failing, extracted one from Will, and eventually a chuckle from Hannibal. 

In her room, Hannibal instructed Abigail to find something to put on that she wouldn’t mind ruining, and Abigail produced an older nightgown. 

They would have banished her to the bathroom and waited, had she not turned around expectantly and asked, “would you? For the sake of it?” 

Will watched from the bed as Hannibal deftly unlaced, unhooked, and untied the layers of Abigail’s gown to the point where she could remove them herself, to her chemise. Both men had the decency to look away, despite the fact that the chemise alone reached Abigail’s knees. Hannibal only turned when she passed a piece of garment to him to put away, and even then, his head and eyes remained fixed on Will, who was staring at the floor. 

She left them to change without a word. Hannibal stared at the pile of silk in his hands. They began folding. 

“You didn’t poison her.”

Hannibal swallowed. “No.”

“Why?” _Why lie?_

Hannibal stopped folding. He seemed to truly consider it. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Will was folding a petticoat while Hannibal stood still. “You weren’t… curious? You didn’t want control? You just… did it?” 

“Precisely.” Hannibal resumed folding. “I think. I need her to believe the lie, just until it’s over. It’s an alibi if we are ever questioned.”

“You have a strange way of showing affection.” Will spoke into the trunk as he smoothed the fabric down. 

Hannibal swallowed again. “I know.”

Abigail returned, hair down and hairbrush in hand. 

“I’m certainly too old for this, but my mother used to do it for me before bed. You took her from me, and my father. It’s your duty now, before you kill me one last time.” She deposited the brush in Hannibal’s stunned hands, and turned to Will. “I hope one of you can plait.” 

Both men blinked. Hannibal cleared his throat. Will clenched his left fist and looked away. Abigail sat at her dressing table without a word, giving her fathers an icy stare from the mirror. 

Hannibal stepped forward first, and raised the brush to her hair hesitantly. 

“Ah!” Abigail jolted forward, causing Hannibal to jump back as if he had been electrocuted or burned. Or bitten. He fought the urge to ask what he had done wrong. She _knew_ she was being deceived, and playing house was Hannibal’s punishment. He would pay his penance. He supposed he deserved it. 

Abigail lifted a green glass jar over her shoulder to Will. He knew enough about Hannibal’s tastes in gifts that it did not merely resemble an ancient Greek aryballos, it was one. In the form of a pomegranate, no less. It smelled strongly of marjoram and frankincense. Will tilted it over his fingers to collect enough oil without spilling it, then dutifully ran his fingers through Abigail’s hair until his fingers were virtually clean. He walked to her washstand to clean the rest off, watching Hannibal run the brush through her hair in the mirror. While Will’s back was still turned, Abigail spoke. 

“You had a sister, Hannibal.” She grinned at him in the mirror. “Mischa? Did you plait her hair? When mother couldn’t?”

Hannibal faltered, but kept brushing. 

“No,” he swallowed, “I never learned.”

Her predatory gaze turned on Will. They locked eyes through silver-backed glass. 

_I’m proud of you, for rubbing salt in these wounds before he stitches them closed,_ he wanted to say. He hoped the look they exchanged conveyed that. It was her funeral, and they would make her as gorgeous as she wanted. 

“Where did you learn, Will? If you learned, that is.”

Hannibal realized she’d make an excellent hunter, with a little practice. If he were Ares, then Abigail was a savage and beautiful Penthesilea, and he was already so proud of his daughter. 

Will set his jaw and turned to respond. “Molly had nieces.”

Abigail’s lips parted in a silent, “ah.” 

Hannibal resumed brushing, and as he brushed, he answered the questions Abigail would not ask aloud, and explained what would happen. It seemed simple, like a doctor’s blood transfusion. Hannibal chuckled when Abigail made the comparison. 

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is a bit like that.” 

Hannibal brushed Abigail’s hair methodically, without the slightest hint of fatigue, until the length of her hair shone with the divine perfume of a goddess.

Then, Will braided it. It was simple, something she could’ve done herself in minutes to wear to bed, but Will took his time requesting the brush from Hannibal each time he crossed a strand over the other. He finished it with a black velvet ribbon. 

When Abigail stood, she held her head high, higher than either Will or Hannibal had ever seen it. Her shoulders were set, rigid, and her throat jumped with each breath. Even though they were several heads above her, Abigail seemed to tower over her fathers in this moment. She gave no hint of anxiety or fear, like a brash young captain before battle. 

Hannibal led her to her bed, bidding her to recline into the down pillows. As Will made to move to the opposite side, Hannibal locked his wrist in a vice grip. 

“I can trust you to stop?” Hannibal hissed it rather than asked. 

“I trust him, father.” Abigail’s voice rang out like a steel blade. She was sitting up, her glare turned on Hannibal. “You don’t trust him to control himself. I trust him, more than I trust you right now.” 

Will wretched his hand away, taking his place at the opposite side of the bed. 

Abigail leaned back with Will and Hannibal sitting to either side. Hannibal had adjusted his sleeves, and Will had taken off his waistcoat and done the same. They each took one of her wrists. Hannibal paused when the pale underside was a hair's breadth away from his teeth. 

“This might hurt,” he whispered. 

Abigail half-expected his breath to feel hot, like a person’s, against her wrist. It was cool, dry, the same temperature as the air. Neutral was the only word. She flicked her eyes to Will, who hovered over her almost gently, a benevolent angel of death. She looked back to Hannibal. She gave the slightest of nods in response. 

They probably hoped she would close her eyes, but Abigail kept her gaze locked on Hannibal and Will from the moment they broke skin. She’d gasped at first, a hiss through her teeth at the shock of the burn, but it quickly faded to a dull, nearly pleasant throb. Will didn’t like looking at her very much, unless she was still, heavy lidded and breathing shallow. He grew uncomfortable when a flash of pain stung her and she grimaced, so she would turn to Hannibal. He had the control to extend a hand to her hair, petting it and stroking her temple until her breathing slowed again. Will eventually gained enough sense to put his other hand in Abigail’s. She gripped it like a vice with her remaining strength. 

How long had they been doing this, taking turns comforting their daughter through her growing pains? Abigail thought it was an eternity when the ticking of the mantle clock started to grow unbearably loud. Each time she turned her eyes from Will to Hannibal and back, it required the slightest turn of her head. Now when she looked to Hannibal, the canopy of her four-poster bed spun wildly above her, and she was aware of a sheen of icy sweat over her entire body. Her hand shook in Hannibal’s grip, almost of its own accord. She needed to tell Hannibal. Was this right?

“I’m... cold,” she breathed. 

“I know.” Hannibal was reaching for something. When had he pulled away? When had Will? The dull ache was absent on her right, too, leaving only a drained, empty feeling. 

“We’re going to make you warm, _mieloji_ ,” Hannibal pressed a kiss to her forehead. He pointed to somewhere in the room, said something to Will. It was unintelligible, drowned out by a ringing in Abigail’s ears. 

Abigail realized the mantle clock had been her heartbeat when Hannibal drew a scalpel across his wrist and brought the gash to her lips. 

It didn’t taste how she expected. It wasn’t the hot salted copper of a cut lip or broken nose or slit throat. It was heavy, spiced, and best of all, electric. It was every drug every doctor had ever laced into food and drink and injections at that Baltimore madhouse all at once. And then it was gone. Abigail whined. She hated herself for showing weakness, dependency, but it was only for a moment, then Will’s slashed wrist was at her lips, his other hand cupped at the back of her neck to hold her up. 

Each mouthful of blood brought more independence. After Will, she could hold Hannibal’s wrist in place on her own. Hannibal had his good fist knotted in the bedclothes, letting out low, sharp breaths from between his teeth for every swallow Abigail took. She was hurting him. Though minimal in the grand scheme, pain was pain. Abigail couldn’t help but give Hannibal a broad smile when he wretched his wrist away, and it was Will’s turn again. Hannibal fought a mix of pride and fear at the sight of his daughter’s blood-stained mouth. Proud, because she was so strong, and afraid, because it was his own blood. 

If Hannibal noticed the gentleness between her and Will, he did not show it. Will dutifully pet her hair and murmured encouragements, “yes, that’s it,” and “we’re almost done,” among them. None of them acknowledged Abigail’s obvious dismay when Will removed his wrist for the last time. 

“What now?” she whispered. She was clearly distracted when she looked to Hannibal. The way things looked had already begun to change. The moonlight filtering through the room started striking things like the hairbrush handle and Hannibal’s eyes so differently than Abigail remembered.

“Now you die,” Hannibal said.

“Will it hurt?”

“Excruciatingly, I expect.”

Abigail swallowed. She didn’t have to wait long for the first pangs to hit. 

Hannibal was wrong, there were worse pains than this.

Sitting next to young girls with black hair and fair skin and blue eyes on trains hurt worse than this.

Knowing that girl, that pretty girl who liked horseback riding and penny dreadfuls and _Treasure Island_ , was in her supper and her pillows and paste and knife handles hurt worse than this. 

Having her throat slit hurt worse than this.

Letting Doctor Lecter convince her she had butchered Nicholas Boyle hurt worse than this.

Letting him take her blood, slice off her ear, and abandon her at that bluff house hurt worse than this. 

Having her throat slit the second time hurt worse than this. 

This third death was minor compared to everything her fathers had done to her. Yet she forgave them, as they had forgiven each other. Both had served their penances for their crimes against her. They had dealt and been dealt punishment for enough sins to share. There was no more energy for anything but forgiveness, from any of them. So Abigail forgave them and learned to love them, as they had learned to love each other, because there was nothing else to do. 

The pains ebbed and flowed, like waves of blood from a deep gash in the stomach. Abigail became aware of several things in between crushing waves of agony that threatened to drown her. 

Most of her hair had come undone and stuck to her in a sheen of sweat. Large, gentle hands from either side pushed hair from her forehead and off her neck. Cold, wet cloths were swiped across her forehead, against her neck. Cool fingertips briefly brushed her thighs, pulling her nightgown back down with both haste and care when it slipped.

She saw white as her organs shut down. 

The urge to scream was overwhelming. Instead, she gritted her teeth and prayed she wouldn’t bite her own tongue off. God help her if she screamed now, after everything. 

Low, gentle Lithuanian nonsense filtered into one ear like the crackle and bubble of roasted pork fat in an oven or soup on a stove. The warm, slow Creole in the other ear was like overly-honeyed cake batter or chicory coffee poured over steamed milk. She didn’t need to know either language to know what they were saying between the soft shushing and soothing strokes over her cheeks, eyelids, temples. Soft kisses at her hairline were scattered through the foreign delirium like punctuation, wax seals on contracts, promises to the future. 

“Don’t worry— 

“—beloved—”

“—we’re here—”

A kiss on her left. Hannibal, then.

“—my darling—”

“—our sweet—”

“—nearly over—”

“—my dear—”

A kiss at the right. Will.

“—our love—”

“—don’t worry.”

Images of mothers from St. Thomas’ flashed behind her eyes. They hardly ever out-right screamed when they had their babies. It was always more of a blood-curdling, animalistic noise akin to a growl that humans had clearly never forgotten how to make despite eons of evolution. Is this what this was? A birth? The common elements were there: blood, pain, and at the end, a new life. Hannibal and Will were giving birth to her, yet she, the offspring, was the one suffering. Abigail half-heartedly wondered if Hannibal and Will would let her keep her job if she switched to night shifts. 

One of her fathers, impossible to tell who, hissed when she dug her nails into his hand. The other father chuckled, already impressed with her strength, until it was his turn to have his exposed skin clawed in the throes of his daughter’s agony. 

Gradually, her breathing stilled. The white-hot pain faded. Hannibal leaned forward to rest his forehead on hers, and she felt Will rest on her shoulder. She unclenched the bedclothes and her fathers’ hands, much to their relief. All of their chests heaved. Abigail’s with the exhaustion of dying and being reborn, Hannibal and Will’s with the exhaustion of birthing, or rebirthing, their daughter. She wrapped one arm around Hannibal, and the other around Will behind her. They stayed like that until the sweat at Abigail’s throat dried sticky and cool, and their breathing slowed. 

“Come see yourself,” Will whispered in her ear. His breath on her neck no longer felt strangely neutral like Hannibal’s had before. It felt… normal, like it had always been this temperature and would always be this temperature. 

Abigail caught Hannibal’s wide smile just as Will’s hand’s came over her eyes. He still had traces of her blood on his teeth. She laughed, her hands instinctively flying to his wrists. Abigail yanked her hands away as if she’d been burned. Will’s hands were the same temperature as her own. She spun around with a gasp, earning a chuckle from both Hannibal and Will. Silently, she reached for Will’s hand again, placing her palm in his. 

“You’re not cold,” she stated. 

“You’re not hot,” Will tossed back. 

“The same,” Abigail whispered, taking his hand to her cheek to feel this balance more fully. Will smiled, allowing Abigail to feel the wonder as completely as possible. 

“Come,” Hannibal said. She turned to the dressing table and Will covered her eyes again. 

Abigail stepped back at her own reflection. 

Her fingers went to the scars at her throat first. They were silvery, smooth, faint. They looked twenty years old rather than just five. She found her teeth second. The points on the canines and the incisors adjacent to them were truly beautiful. Subtle enough to pass through polite society, yet prominent enough to allow fear to blossom in a victim’s eyes. She ran her tongue over her teeth, partly to clean the last of Hannibal and Will’s blood off, partly to have just a taste of it again. She was slow, mindful of the sharp points. 

Hannibal could have melted into the floor. Love and pride rolled off him in massive waves. He looked to Will as if he were a proud father or mother. It was all he ever wanted. 

“What now?” Abigail asked. 

“We can wait for the sun,” Hannibal responded, “if you like. Or we can go to bed now.”

“What time is it now?” she asked. “How long did it take?” 

“Abigail,” Will placed a hand on her shoulder, “it only took an hour, if that.” 

“I know,” Hannibal said, “it feels like days. It can take hours for some. And for some, the agony kills them.”

“You hardly screamed,” Will offered. 

Abigail remembered why they had done this in the first place. She drew herself to her full height and delivered a stare she knew made Hannibal squirm. 

“You lied.”

Hannibal’s face fell. “Yes.”

“Why?”

His mouth opened and closed like a caught fish or a girl with her throat cut.

“I don’t know. Truly.” He hung his head. Hannibal was ashamed. “We must have answers if others ever question us, that _is_ true. You had to believe it, if only for the moment.” 

“I hate that I forgive you.” Abigail stepped forward and hugged his middle. Hannibal hesitated for a moment in surprise before he wrapped his arms around Abigail’s shoulders. 

“We should prepare your room,” Hannibal said with his chin propped on her head. “We don’t want the sun rising on you.”

Abigail pulled away. “Can’t I sleep someplace else, just for tonight? Aren’t you tired?” 

“Every guestroom in the house has windows,” he explained. “Only our bedroom is properly barred.”

He looked to Will. “Would you mind? Only for the night?” 

The request Hannibal was making took its time to pierce through Will’s exhaustion. By the time it did, he was shaking his head rapidly to make up for the delay. 

“No, of course you can sleep in our room,” Will spoke so quickly he almost stumbled over his words. “I don’t mind at all. I’m sure there’s a campaign bed somewhere.”

With that, the men set to work. The makings for a bed were found, in some tucked away closet in some unused guestroom. Abigail watched from the hall as they made up the bed at the foot of their own. As they worked, the clock down the hall struck one, two, three four times. Was it really so late? They’d only had dinner around eleven or so. Had Will lied? 

The clock was horribly loud. Loud enough to hurt. What was more annoying than the clock was a constant hissing noise. Abigail had noticed it in her room, and it had only grown louder and more intolerable in the hallway.

Her nightgown was the worst of all. Every loose thread, every bit of lace, every tie made her want to rip her skin off. She hadn’t shat or pissed herself like Hannibal had said, thank God. One less thing to worry about. Will was arguing with Hannibal over whether or not a piece of the bed folded out this way or that, and if the spring mechanisms had rusted too much to use it. Hannibal was speaking low from his kneeling position on the ground, but something he said caused Will to throw his hands up briefly. Hannibal looked up to Will expectantly, as if to say, “ _don’t you see? You’re being ridiculous._ ” Abigail imagined it had something to do with her chances of contracting tetanus. 

Something on Abigail’s sleeve was making her wrists itch and crawl with the uncomfortable burning spreading across her whole body. She absently pulled up a sleeve and scratched. Her nails no longer met smooth skin. Abigail looked down and saw a half-moon pattern the same silver color as the scars at her throat. Teeth marks— no. Fang marks. Hannibal. The place where Hannibal had bitten her. The other wrist was the same. Where Will had bitten her. 

Abigail sank to the floor. The rug was plush and rough at the same time. The wood floors stuck to her thighs uncomfortably. This was real. It had happened. Hannibal and Will argued across the hall. Did they do _everything_ married couples did? Could she? If she wanted to? Abigail was overcome with the sudden desire to vomit, if she could have. 

“Abigail?” Will’s voice. “Are you okay, _ma cher_?”

She attempted to look beyond him, through him, but his crouched figure blocked her vision. She took the risk anyways and gave her head a small shake. 

“Too much?” Will guessed. His voice had dropped to a whisper. Hannibal was wrestling with bedclothes in their room. Abigail nodded. 

“Do you have anything silk to wear?” Will asked.

“What?”

“A silk dressing gown? Chemise? Anything?” he repeated.

“I— yeah, I’m sure.”

Will extended a hand. “Come on.”

They went back to Abigail’s room in silence. Well, silence for Will, presumably. Abigail found herself wanting to turn at every sound. She heard Hannibal swearing in Lithuanian just down the hall as if she were in the same room, and each step on the carpet felt like needles in her feet. Her room was only a few feet away from theirs and across the hallway, but it felt like miles. 

More horribly plush-yet-painful carpet greeted Abigail in her bedroom. She stood by the door as Will started rummaging through her wardrobe. 

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said, presenting a dressing gown to her, “ransacking a lady’s things isn’t very gentlemanly.” 

Abigail offered a weak smile and went behind the folding screen near the washstand. Will was right, the silk felt much better than the cotton. It felt cool, smooth. Nothing itched for now. 

As she passed from behind the screen, Abigail caught her reflection in the washstand mirror. This time, she didn’t withhold the horrified gasp that rose in her throat. 

Parts of her body were coated in a red film, as if someone had brushed thin egg tempera paint or lacquer over certain areas and allowed it to crack. It had dripped down her neck, collected at her collarbones, and smeared at her temples into her hair and between her breasts. 

“Abigail?” Will was coming up behind her. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s just sweat.” He chuckled as he took a cloth, dipped it in the washbasin, and began dabbing and swiping at Abigail’s face and neck. 

“You — we — sweat blood?” Abigail tilted her head at the gentle guidance of Will’s fingertips.

“And cry it, but you knew that,” Will said. He instructed her to look the other way. 

“I didn’t notice it the first time I looked.”

“It’s hard to spot, unless it’s a lot. You were also newly born. The true beauty of the world had just been revealed, and it was dazzling.” He handed her the cloth so she could clean her chest. 

“It feels like a horror now.”

Will came around behind her and brushed the blood sweat-caked hair from her shoulder. 

“It won’t,” he promised. He started to undo the braid and brush the tangles out. “Tomorrow will be better. We’ll go hunting.” 

Will felt Abigail tense at the word. “I shouldn’t have said it like that.” 

“No, that’s what it is, isn’t it? We’re the ultimate apex predator. A fucked up twist of fate, if you think about it.”

“Do you… _regret_ … your choice?” Will asked. He’d brushed as much blood from her hair as possible as he’d braided, and now he was tying the ribbon back. 

“How could I?” Abigail turned to face him. “His mind was made up. I think he would’ve done it anyways.” 

“That’s not true.” Will shook his head. “Your father loves you more than anything in this life. If you’d said no, he would have never made you. _Never._ He— he panicked. I think he didn’t expect you to say yes tonight. He was terrified. He thought he’d have to do it alone, and he didn’t think he could.”

“I can’t imagine Hannibal being so terrified like that, and over me.” Abigail’s brow furrowed. 

“He pinned me to the cutting board in the kitchen earlier. By the arm.” Will attempted to keep a straight face, but once he cracked a smile and laughed, Abigail followed. 

Before Will could make sense of it, Abigail was pulling him into a rib-crushing hug. 

“I’m proud of you,” he said into her hair. “I’m proud of you. For how you hold your own against him when he panics. For how strong you are. For never giving up on us, even at our worsts. ” 

His fingers skimmed the remains of her ear as he brushed loose hairs away. They held that position for a small eternity, until Will heard Hannibal in the hall. 

“Let’s go back.”

Hannibal had managed just fine on his own, and bought Will’s half-truth of cleaning Abigail up. It was only about five in the morning now. They still had two hours until sunrise. Abigail asked to see the dogs. 

“Will they still like me?”

Will couldn’t help but laugh. “They like me, don’t they?”

They hardly made it past the threshold of Hannibal and Will’s bedroom before both men noticed Abigail wincing. Hannibal halted immediately, Will following shortly after. 

“What’s the matter, Abigail? Are you hurt?” Hannibal’s brow creased, his concern seemingly genuine. 

“It’s the carpet,” she admitted. “It… hurts.” 

“A newborn vampire’s senses are easily overwhelmed, particularly on the first night,” Hannibal explained, “May I?” 

Hannibal hovered his arm near her back, and Abigail realized he was asking if he could carry her. She nodded, then realizing the mistake, shook her head. Hannibal scooped her up like a rag doll, carrying her down the stairs as if she weighed nothing more than a cloud. 

The dogs greeted them as if nothing had happened. They crowded around Abigail’s ankles, sniffing up her legs to excitedly pinpoint what had changed. 

“They know you are different now, like us, but they love you just the same,” Hannibal smiled. 

Abigail managed a small smile, but it was no contest against Hannibal’s perception. They led her back to the parlor where the fire from earlier had dwindled to embers. Hannibal dutifully fetched a soft blanket to lay across Abigail’s armchair.

“Can I sit with you? On the couch?” Abigail asked. 

Hannibal looked up from the chair, the surprise clear on his face once again this evening. “Of course.”

Hannibal plucked a book off the shelf while Will took a seat at one end of the couch. Hannibal sat at the other end and patted the middle for Abigail. She laid on her hip, facing out toward the dogs and fire that Will had stoked back to blazing. Will balled up the blanket on his lap and immediately began carding his fingers through what he could of Abigail’s hair. She leaned back against his chest, closing her eyes as her muscles steadily relaxed with each touch. Will felt warm. Safe. Abigail could hear his heart faintly beating and feel his chest press against her shoulders with each breath. 

Hannibal had started reading. Something in some dead language. It sounded like the _Odyssey._ Abigail had heard it enough times to recognize it, even in Greek. Hannibal made it sound like it was supposed to, like music, that’s the only reason why Abigail never minded. She supposed it was his accent that gave him the proper lilt to his voice for Greek. She was thinking too much. Hannibal was almost done appealing to the Muses. She sank into the blanket, the feeling of Will’s fingers in her hair, and the way Odysseus’ troubles spilled from Hannibal’s lips like wine.

The Greek blurred hopelessly together after some time. A few names or pieces of words were recognized, but those became lost too as Abigail fell in and out of sleep. Will never faltered in his ministrations as far as she could tell, not once, and Hannibal never stopped reading. If they had though, she would have never noticed anyways. 

After a while, Will and Hannibal did stop, but only when they were certain Abigail was fully asleep. Only less than an hour until sunrise now. 

“She’s beautiful.” Will chanced at playing with her hair again. Abigail only sighed in response. 

Hannibal hummed. “Indeed. And we both had a hand in creating her.”

“Like parents should.”

Like actors in a well-rehearsed play, Will silently stretched his free hand out to Hannibal, and Hannibal silently took it. 

“She’s afraid again,” Will said. He’d started rubbing patterns on Hannibal’s hand. He was mindful of the ring. It offered a new, different routine to learn. “Of you. Of hunting. You have to make this up to her. You can’t just teach her how to dance and buy her pretty things and expect it all to go away.”

Hannibal was silent. 

“I know you love her. I know you do. Make sure it’s in a way she can understand and reciprocate.”

“I know.” Hannibal’s voice was low, thick. Will knew rare tears that had become all too common this night were building in his eyes and voice. 

Will pressed his lips to Hannibal’s hand. “Let’s go to bed.”

Will carried Abigail this time. It was a small feat to remove themselves from the couch without waking her, but the satisfaction was well worth the effort. By the time Hannibal helped tuck her into the campaign bed, the exhaustion had truly set in. 

Both of them fell into bed fully clothed, a matter for their future selves to worry about. As was their custom, Will pulled Hannibal to his chest, their hands loosely clasped near Hannibal’s middle and Will’s chin buried in Hannibal’s neck. Though neither mentioned it, their rings gave a new weight to their hands that felt right, as if something had been missing. Even Abigail at the foot of the bed felt right, the campaign bed squeaking gently with the tiny movements in her sleep. 

For a moment, Hannibal could pretend time _had_ reversed, exactly as he had wanted. This room could be a rented one at a boarding house in someplace like Geneva or Copenhagen instead of their bedroom in London. 

Will had begun breathing shallow and even. Exhaustion soon took Hannibal, too. Neither of them were aware of the surprise they would wake to the next night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ma cher:** my sweetheart, dear, etc. Pronounced [MA SHA] in Louisiana French  
> ***  
> Once again, thanks to my dearheart betas!! None of this would be possible without their insight or support!


	3. there she stands, the living witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hunting trip, an educational lesson.

If Hannibal’s heart could have still given out, it would have. He wasn’t entirely certain it couldn’t. 

Abigail lay on the far side of the bed, his bed, facing him with her sable hair draped over one shoulder and an angelic expression that was permanently delicate and alluring, thanks to him and Will. The blanket swaddled her, with only a sliver of the dressing gown visible. The small amount of moonlight permitted to enter the room illuminated her in the most gorgeous way. Not a way tinged with desire, no. It illuminated her as Hannibal imagined Diana should be illuminated from within, the maiden goddess with her huntresses. However, there were more pressing matters at hand than his daughter’s beauty. Presently, the question of why she was in his bed loomed largest. 

Hannibal gently lifted Will’s arm from his middle, knowing the slightest movement would awaken him. Will stirred, immediately groaning and mumbling. Hannibal quickly silenced him with a hand over his mouth, throwing a glance over his shoulder, then one back at Abigail. Hannibal watched as the shock blossomed on Will’s face after he looked over Hannibal’s shoulder. 

Will raised his eyebrows. _Should we wake her?_

Hannibal did the same. _I don’t know._

They looked back at their daughter. 

Hannibal extended a hand toward Abigail’s shoulder in the same manner one reached for a snake. 

Abigail woke with a small sigh, then remembering what she had done, bolted upright. She practically flew from the bed, apologizing profusely the entire time, while Hannibal and Will only watched. 

“We don’t mind, aren’t mad, I suppose,” Will said once she fell quiet. “We’d like to know why.”

All she said was, “Nightmares.”

Hannibal stretched out a hand, leading her out of bed. “Come tell us about them over breakfast.”

The carpet was no longer pins and needles, but things still felt almost too much, too loud. Abigail took Will’s arm when he offered it to help her down the stairs. 

Hannibal began taking out tea cups and a small pot once they were in the kitchen. Will came around the table, stopping by the icebox to retrieve something as he went. He passed the item to Hannibal at the stove, followed by a wooden spoon, and was rewarded with a kiss at the corner of his mouth. They moved like a machine engineered for perfection, no catches in the cogs to be found. Abigail watched from the other side of the table, transfixed by their pantomime of domesticity. It contrasted horribly with the spots of blood still on Hannibal’s shirtsleeve. She supposed this was her debut performance after practicing lines for so long. 

Will placed a teacup before her after a few minutes. It was filled with viscous frothy red liquid. The cup radiated a slight warmth as well, though no steam rose. Hannibal took a deep pull from his cup, just shy of draining it completely. Even after he had unveiled the darkest, most monstrous parts of himself to Abigail, he was still wearing the impeccable suit of a perfect gentleman. The traces of blood left on the porcelain would’ve made Abigail shake with frustration and rage four years ago. It would’ve made her hate Hannibal. Now it only made her pick up her own cup and offer a small smile to both men. 

It was hard to remain angry as the cup’s scent became overwhelming. Her thoughts raced. Even if Hannibal had been able to read them, they would’ve been utterly incomprehensible in this moment. Abigail knew the smell of blood, knew it better than most. She knew it coughed up from the lungs, hemorrhaged from the uterus, dried under her nails from emergencies that couldn’t be stopped soon enough before another required her attention. She’d known the taste too, like anyone, long before Hannibal and Will had given her their personal ichor. Now it was as if she’d never known it and was experiencing it anew. The instant the warmth of the blood passed her lips Abigail fought the horrible urge to down it as fast as possible. She placed her teacup in the saucer just as Hannibal had: a small pool at the bottom and a translucent film where the blood had been. Exactly like a lady. Will seemed startled by the clink the china made as the pieces met; he’d been taking slow sips from his cup as if it were morning coffee or tea. Hannibal merely offered a smug grin as the only indication of his pride. 

“Incredible restraint for one so young,” Hannibal smiled, taking her cup and filling it again from the pot at the stove. “You don’t have to restrain yourself if it does not come naturally, darling.”

She gave him a pointed look as she took the teacup. She ignored Will’s attempt to catch her eyes as she downed the second cup, abandoning Hannibal’s precious decorum just like he wanted. It was both easier and harder to give in to the predatory affect the blood produced. Easier, because it wasn’t the first time, yet harder, because she wanted more. When the teacup hit the saucer for the second time, it couldn’t help but rattle slightly at the force Abigail put behind it. Will had finished his first cup and was starting he and Hannibal on their second. The last of what was on the stove. 

“Why like this? Why force civility on it? How can you even have the control?” The questions trickled from her in a whisper. 

“Why not?” Hannibal cocked his head to the side in the way she hated. “You gave us this gift my love, how else should we enjoy it?” 

“The way you do when you go hunting. I know you go. I read papers.” 

Hannibal looked as if he wanted to protest, might’ve protested, had Will not given him a short look. 

“We’ll take you,” he said. “Anything you want. Name it and it’s yours.”

“When your duty as parents is complete, you let me go. Teach me to hunt one last time and I can manage on my own from there.”

It was less of a request and more of a demand. Hannibal swallowed, visibly shaken far beyond his normal composure. Will spoke for him again, afraid for what might happen if he did speak. 

“Very well. Get dressed. It’s only a few hours out, we should make it by dawn.”

Abigail rushed to the door, but paused and turned to Will at the last second. “And if we don’t?” 

“We will make it.” It was Hannibal. He spoke with his head bowed to the table. Abigail nodded and the kitchen door swung in her wake. 

Will waited long after the door had gone still and Abigail’s feet had rushed up the stairs, followed by snuffs and huffs of the dogs, to turn to Hannibal expectantly. He decided not to risk taking his hand or touching his back.

“Will we make it?” Will asked. 

Hannibal bowed his head. “No.”

* * *

Abigail dressed quickly, bounding downstairs only half an hour later in a pair of Will’s old wool trousers from Baltimore that had shrunken in the laundry by mistake, one of her own shirtwaists, and flat riding boots. 

Will looked up from the bag he was repacking on the kitchen table. She had belted the trousers tightly around the waist and taken her plait up into a bun, and her locket rested on her chest as well. She unshouldered a small bag next to one of Hannibal’s that had already been brought down and sat in the chair in the corner. 

“Nice look,” Will said to the bag’s contents. Abigail offered a small smile. 

“Thanks.” 

Hannibal joined them shortly after, announcing that everything seemed in order, and they were on time, if not early. He also announced he’d called a cab, and checked train schedules by phone. 

Will flashed him a smile and kissed him. “Incredible as always.”

The doorbell and barks of the dogs brought all of their attention to the present. Hannibal and Will looked to Abigail. She looked back. The doorbell rang again. 

* * *

Hannibal tipped the cab driver exorbitantly for bringing them to the train station so late in the evening, and in the freezing sleet no less. They rushed inside to an empty station and a tired ticket boy. 

“Three tickets for the 10:30, please,” Hannibal said, offering bills with a gloved hand. The boy looked as if he had a mind to protest, to inform Hannibal that tickets weren’t sold less than thirty minutes prior to departure, as a sign clearly stated. Nevertheless, they came away a moment later with three first-class tickets in their own private carriage. 

They found the train and chose a carriage easily enough; it was routine to Hannibal and Will at this point, and Abigail was eager to watch and follow. 

Will immediately drew the shades on the compartment and outer windows while Hannibal placed their bags overhead. Abigail chose to sit opposite Hannibal and Will for the first few hours, using her newly improved sight to read the Keats and Shelley edition Will had gotten her. She recited her favorites out loud, passing the book back and forth so both Hannibal and Will could read their favorites. Hannibal recited "Love’s Philosophy” for Will while Will recited "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" back. Abigail ended with "A Draught of Sunshine."

“He was dying when he wrote that,” she said, when she had finished. 

“How do you know?” Will asked. He already knew, she had told him before, but he wanted to hear it again. 

“He describes the pyramid of Caius Cestius, going toward the earth, so on. But he doesn’t seem sad about it. He takes comfort in the fact that he dies in his beloved Rome, with his patron Apollo.”

“Exactly,” smiled Hannibal. He leaned forward for the book, and beckoned Abigail to sit with them. Hannibal angled himself into the corner of the seat and Will moved closer to rest his head on his chest. Abigail sat next to Will, crossing her legs and draping his right arm around her shoulder. Once they were all comfortable, Hannibal began reading. Mostly Keats, because that was who Abigail had left it on, and mostly his more intoxicating sonnets and odes to the emotions. When he finished reciting “To Sleep,” Hannibal looked down and saw that Abigail had slumped down into Will’s lap, and he was petting her hair gently, his own eyes glazed with drowsiness. 

“She has grown closer to you,” Hannibal nodded to Abigail’s sleeping form. “Closer than she was with me in the beginning.”

Will looked up. He risked reaching for the curtain near the window to glimpse at the sky. 

“We should arrive by five at the latest,” Hannibal offered. “The sun shouldn’t rise until six, and that would be early for midwinter.” 

His comforts fell on deaf ears. “You said we wouldn’t make it. Why are you curious?” 

Hannibal pressed a kiss to Will’s hair. “I am not angry that she wishes to leave. All children must leave their parents, I only wish it were not so soon. I will protect us, you know this.”

Will picked up Hannibal’s left hand and twisted the ring for a moment. “Hannibal. Don’t lie to me,” was his reply.

“Have I ever, Will?” Hannibal whispered in his hair. They fell silent. Will continued to draw his fingers through Abigail's hair.

Abigail slept the rest of the trip, with Will slipping in and out of an anxious half-asleep daze against Hannibal’s chest. He became aware of the other man’s fingers twirling through his hair at some points, reading poetry at others, or dozing off himself, the hand formerly in Will’s hair draped over his chest. As they approached their station, Will grew wide awake, and could only stare at the window with Hannibal, hands clasped in a vice grip. They woke Abigail just before the train ground to a halt, bringing her to alertness with gentleness and subtle urgency. 

When they stepped onto the open-air platform, Will exhaled into the gray early morning with relief. Still dark. A large clock on the platform warned them they had approximately an hour until sunrise. 

Hannibal hailed the first covered cab he saw, practically barking the address of his country house at the driver. 

“It’s only an hour ride,” Will said to Abigail, not bothering to wait for her to ask. 

He whispered something in Hannibal’s ear that Abigail couldn’t hear as they sat next to one another in the cab, then took his gloved hand and gripped it tightly, rubbing the same patterns Abigail had witnessed countless times through the leather. It didn’t stop Hannibal from anxiously checking his watch every five minutes and furiously snapping it shut when time had not moved faster. 

“No.” Will said, almost suddenly, about halfway into the cab ride. Hannibal had checked his watch for the thousandth time and caught Will’s eyes in a pleading look. 

“Why not? It’s the perfect opportunity. I read his thoughts, they are filthy.”

Will sank back in the seat, considering, leaving Abigail to interpret their dialogue. 

“You want to kill the driver,” she said quietly.

“Precisely,” said Hannibal. “He was going to rape you if you were alone. I consider that extremely rude.” 

Abigail considered this piece of information, leaning against her seat to mirror Will. It took her far less time to decide. “Let’s do it.”

Hannibal broke into a broad grin, flashing his teeth. “That’s my girl,” he mock whispered, rapping the cab roof with his walking stick and heading for the door. “Follow our lead.” 

Hannibal jumped from the cab before it fully stopped with the grace of a cat, then started for the driver. Abigail saw dark woods near the open door, and barren snowy countryside to her left. They were alone. 

Hannibal’s voice floated closer toward the open door. “... My brother-in-law, I believe he’s taken ill, but he does not know English. You’re a Pole, are you not? I knew from your accent.” 

The driver, a dark-haired, mustachioed man, leaned in to the cab and began speaking to Will in Polish, who had begun an act of shivering and bleary-eyedness. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Hannibal kicked the driver in the back— hard enough to break something— into the cab. Will pounced on the man, stuffing a scarf in his mouth while Hannibal jumped in and shut the cab. 

He straddled the driver, as if he meant to choke him, but Will held the man’s head in place. 

“Abigail,” Will beckoned, “he’s all yours.”

She froze, staring at the almost ridiculous scene before her. The driver gave her a muffled whine, a plea for help. Will shushed him. 

“Quickly now,” Hannibal panted, “in case another cab comes by.” 

Abigail slid from the leather seat to kneel at the man’s side. She extended a gloved hand, carded it through the hair Will wasn’t gripping. Tears filled the man’s eyes as he whimpered, begged. Like a lame horse. Abigail leaned down next to his ear.

“You should keep your thoughts to yourself next time,” she whispered. “It’s rude to think so loud.”

The driver’s blood was bitter. Hot. Better than breakfast in the teacups, better than Hannibal and Will’s, better than every meal Hannibal had ever cooked, every time Abigail had ever touched herself under the sheets or kissed Marissa Schur on the lips to play “marriage.” She heard the voices of her fathers in her ears, murmuring tiny encouragements, like they had on that night. It already felt so long ago, and it was only… last night? Two nights ago? She felt someone move near her and opened her eyes to see Hannibal and Will, each with a wrist of the driver at their lips.

As quickly as it began, so it ended. Abigail felt strong hands pulling her away from the driver’s throat, despite audible whines and protests.

“It’s almost sunrise, _mieloji_ ,” Hannibal explained. “We must leave him.”

Abigail watched as Hannibal and Will carried the driver deep into the woods. They came back after several minutes smelling of blood, earth, and faintly, lust. 

“He’ll look like an animal attack,” Will told her in the cab. He was cleaning the remaining blood from a short, curved knife. He had licked the majority off, much to Abigail’s displeasure. 

“You have…” He made a motion with his thumb at his own chin. 

“I know what I fucking have on me!” Abigail slumped in the seat, risking a glance out the window. The blood was a crust on her chin by now, resembling the craquelure of a painting in the glimpses she caught in the cab window. 

“We’ll make it.” Will said. He didn’t attempt to offer her the cloth he’d used on the knife. She knew he didn’t expect an apology. 

Abigail turned to face him. “And if we don’t?”

“We will,” he asserted. “And he will protect us.”

“You sound so sure.”

“I ran away with him, of course I’m sure.” Will turned to face the rapidly brightening sky. 

Hannibal drove the cab at a frightening speed. Each branch or rut in the road threatened to topple them and destroy their only means of protection, but Hannibal was no human driver. Will risked a peek from the curtained window. Hannibal’s estate loomed, the first hints of dawn just barely touching the tallest points of the house. 

“It’s twenty paces to the door, then we’re safe.” Will was rushing about the confines of the still-moving cab as fast as he could, gathering their belongings, discarding others. “Get ready to run.”

The cab began to slow. Will extended his hand to Abigail. The silver band on his finger glinted dully in the dim light that was attempting to fill the cab. Abigail took his hand. Will’s pulse, or whatever was left of it, hammered in Abigail’s grip. She was sure her own was doing the same. 

They came to a jolting halt. Hannibal’s boots crunched on the ground and then the door opened. They bolted like a pair of race horses, Hannibal leading them through the thickest shadows to the veranda. It must have only been seconds, but when Abigail risked a look back at the cab— horses nosing at the ground, unaware their true master lay dead inside— the distance looked like miles. 

She turned to Will, panting. “What happens, if we’re caught in it?” 

“We die.” Hannibal said. He seemed to be fumbling with the large front door, or perhaps with a set of keys. 

Abigail crossed the veranda to the deepest shadows and sank down. “What else can kill us?”

Will sat next to her, throwing a glance at Hannibal as a string of Lithuanian curse words escaped him. 

“Fire, but only if we’re chopped into little pieces,” he began. It drew a smile from Abigail. “The sun. Again, complete exposure. Age plays a factor. Hannibal says he’s met vampires who’ve survived death. It takes them decades, centuries to heal, but they survive.”

“Would he?” She gestured to Hannibal. A sheen of blood sweat shimmered on his brow. If he heard, he didn’t acknowledge the slight. 

Will merely shrugged. “I would say yes, only because he’s Hannibal.”

Hannibal crossed over to them. “I heard my name.” He extended a hand to Will and hoisted him to standing. 

“The lock had frozen since last time. I broke it to get us inside, but we will need to bar the door.”

“As long as we aren’t human torches.”

Will pulled Abigail to her feet and the three of them hurried inside, pushing down the terror of the dawn nipping at their heels. 

The massive boom of Hannibal slamming and bolting the door behind them with the remains of the locking mechanism shook the room they were in. He merely pointed toward a room at his left, chest heaving. Abigail and Will followed his directions wordlessly and returned with the closest piece of heavy furniture, which happened to be a small sedan. 

“I can help you with the door tomorrow,” Will offered, “Let’s just try to get some sleep and pray the horses drop dead or run away.”

“You didn’t see?” Hannibal began leading them deeper into the manor. “I made them vampire horses.”

Will merely shook his head, while Abigail stopped in her tracks. 

“I’m kidding,” Hannibal turned to her, “I closed the gate and tied them up out of sight.” 

They continued through the house, past rooms of furniture covered in white sheets and swirling with dust mites in the early morning light. They kept close to the darkest shadows, trailing in each other’s footsteps, hand in hand as if they might get lost otherwise. The collective relief was palpable when Hannibal led them down a set of basement steps. He lit an oil lamp old enough to be a fire hazard and began pulling sheets from large objects. 

The sound of stone scraping stone forced Abigail to look. Two enormous white boxes sat near one another, each carved with high, elegant reliefs of various scenes of soldiers clashing, gods mingling, and emperors triumphing. Abigail peered inside the slightly smaller, though no less ornate, box. There was a small, thin mattress, a thin blanket, and a small pillow. Hannibal pushed the lid — just as beautifully carved — from the other sarcophagus. There was no question what the objects were. She looked inside the larger of the pair as Hannibal and Will reduced themselves to varying degrees of undress behind her. This one seemed carved for a couple, with the two oval-shaped spaces for bodies occupied by the same bedding as the single sarcophagus. 

Hannibal turned to her, only stripped down to his trousers and shirt, ever the gentleman. 

“It’s unusual, I admit, but much safer should anyone come in the house while we sleep. It would take several men to move the lids, and by then we would be well awake.” He never needed to read her thoughts to read her.

Abigail backed away from the single sarcophagus, nearly into Hannibal. “I’m not sleeping in that with the lid on.” She looked up at him. “An ancient Roman died in that?” 

Hannibal bit back a chuckle. “Probably not. Look here,” he knelt down and ran his fingers over the figures in a part of the relief until he found certain ones. “These have no faces. It’s unfinished. Likely a display piece.” 

Abigail glanced from the sarcophagus to Hannibal. She gripped the edge so hard her knuckles turned the same shade of white as the stone. It was too small, too suffocating. Too much like memories of before. 

“I-I’m not that tired, you know,” Abigail pushed herself away from the sarcophagus. “I can stand watch, all day. It’s no problem.” 

Hannibal looked as if he meant to open his mouth in protest, decided against it, and regarded her thoughtfully instead. 

“Nonsense. You can share our sarcophagus with one of us instead, then you will not be alone.” 

Abigail turned to Will, who had watched the exchange patiently with a mixture of understanding and possibly sorrow. He stepped toward her and drew her into an embrace. 

“Never feel like you must ask for anything,” he whispered in her hair. “You’ll always be our daughter.”

Will waited as she stripped down to her own comfort level — underclothes — to help her into the sarcophagus. He passed her the blanket as she settled down, then climbed in on his own side. It was surprisingly spacious, even with Will’s fuller frame attempting to invade Abigail’s half. Two lovers, deceased or reanimated, would be more than comfortable to lie together or separate. 

Hannibal came to Will’s side to give him a kiss that made Abigail wrinkle her nose and both of the men to chuckle, then he kissed the top of Abigail’s head before moving to slide the stone over them. 

The scraping noise was worse to hear from the inside. It reverberated off their stone bed with a deep, echoing scratch. A dim circle of light bled in at their feet and through the slim crack between the body and lid of the stone. Abigail saw Will practically clear as day. He immediately rolled on his side to face away from her and pulled the blanket over himself. She turned and faced the ceiling, or lid, of the sarcophagus. The stone was freezing, even through the thin bedding. 

Abigail suddenly remembered her Greek lessons with Hannibal and shuddered.

“It means _flesh-eating stone,_ ” he’d said _._ “Special limestones were believed to rot the flesh faster than other varieties.” 

That’s what the circle was, a drainage hole. Oh God. Oh Fuck. She’d played a corpse far too many times now, but this was different. Abigail’s breathing quickened and what little light they did have grew dimmer. Her fists knotted in the bedding and her feet bucked. The cotton of her undershirt was twisting too tight around her and the lace neckline pricked her skin like a thousand needles. 

“Abigail,” Will’s voice was a shroud over her. _“Ma cher, regarde-moi._ Your name is Abigail Hobbs, you’re in Northumberland, it’s the morning of January 8th, 1893, and you’re with me.”

“I’m— I’m sorry, I don’t know, I didn’t mean to…” 

He wrapped her in his arms and shushed her, his cotton shirt brushing her cheeks. “It’s alright, I’m here. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You won’t die, you can’t die.” 

Abigail relaxed just slightly, allowing Will to place some distance between them, as much as he could in the sarcophagus. Once she settled further into the bedding, he took down her plait and carded his fingers through her hair. Over and over, until the motion was as involuntary as breathing had been. He sang, too. Whispered sea shanties and field songs picked up across the South. Abigail had never known Will to sing, not once in the years she’d known him, not even after they’d become a family. His voice was beautiful, even at a whisper. It was a voice that could make one see the song effortlessly; tobacco, cotton, and indigo bloomed under a blistering sun before withering in a flash flood of sea water. Slowly, surely, Abigail slipped under a hazy sleep filled with Will’s conjured visions. 

The shriek of stone grinding on stone woke Will and Abigail with a terrible start. Abigail pulled herself from the warmth and safety of his paternal embrace to nearly hit her head on the edge of the lid as Hannibal pulled it back. 

“Good evening,” he grinned. “I trust you slept well.” 

“I’ll sleep better knowing we’ve got an alibi,” Will stood up, stretched, cracking stiffness from his joints. Abigail followed suit.

“If forced to choose between a deathbed, or dying,” Abigail snipped, “I think I’d choose dying.” 

“It was not that horrific,” Hannibal scoffed. 

“She had a fit, Hannibal.” Will chided. “Were it not for me, I think the dove would’ve dashed herself against the bars of her cage.” 

Hannibal regarded them for a moment. They were serious. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, swiping a damp cloth at the dried blood on Abigail’s chin while Will put on the rest of his clothes. “I should not have disregarded your feelings toward the sarcophagi.”

Abigail caught his wrist in her hand. “Like we said, Will was there. If he hadn’t been, who knows what I would’ve done.”

Not for the first time lately, pride and fear surged in Hannibal in equal measure. 

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said to her and Will. “I have a surprise for you both.” 

Hannibal led them back above ground to the land of the living, to one of the rooms they’d passed earlier. He’d removed the sheets to reveal a lavish dining room, stoked the hearth, and lit the gas lights across the walls. At the long banquet table six chairs sat on either side, though only half were empty. 

Two young men, one with dark, curly hair, the other flaxseed blond, sat bound and gagged next to one another. The chairs next to them were empty. Across from the blond man, a young woman. She too was restrained similarly, her dark golden curls falling across her eyes. They shot desperate, pleading looks at Will and Abigail when they entered. The men even attempted screaming. 

Will cocked an eyebrow at Hannibal as if to say, _really?_ Hannibal returned with a shrug. 

“Are they…?” Abigail turned to Hannibal, her face unreadable. 

“A gift, for you, _mieloji._ And also for your father, but mostly for you.” Hannibal enveloped Abigail in a deep hug, just like the one in his Baltimore kitchen so long ago. “I am so _proud_ of you, my love.”

Abigail approached the girl, brushing her loose curls back from her neck. “She’s for me?”

“You may choose whoever you’d like,” Hannibal smiled, “though I suspected you might like her.” 

Abigail attempted to hide the flush in her cheeks by dipping her head close to the girl’s neck. She breathed deep, just as Hannibal had taught her to do. He’d always been preparing her for this, in a way, hadn’t he? Abigail smelled juniper first, then clove and orange peel. She leaned in, taking the girl by the shoulder to pull her close enough and press a kiss to her soft, white neck. She smelled metal next— the scalding burn of a copper kettle— the rapid pulse under the flesh. The girl shivered when Abigail ran her tongue up her neck, tasting salt, sweat, fear. Why was she doing this? She’d never done anything like this. She was aware of the other victims watching her, either in horror or arousal, she didn’t know which and she didn’t care. She knew Hannibal and Will watched her too, certainly with pride, probably in fascination. And yet, she couldn’t stop herself from taking the girl by the chin and forcing her mouth on hers. _Oh,_ it was unlike kissing any boy in the alcoves of a ball or playing marriage with Marissa Schur. This was– this was– _fuck._

Abigail cradled the girl’s head and tilted it gently. She wanted this to feel good. She tried to say as much, but by now the girl was quasi-unresponsive with shock, Hannibal would say. Abigail couldn’t have said anything if she wanted to. All she knew was move, act, do. She smelled juniper and orange again when she broke flesh. She whimpered into the girl; she couldn’t help it. This girl was delicate, her breaths coming in short puffs as Abigail held her steady with one hand and stroked her hair with the other, just as her fathers had done for her. She liked to think it felt good. She hoped it felt good. The girl’s heart pounded in Abigail’s ears, in her mouth, her whole body. She felt it slow gradually, grow weak. Hannibal would tell her to stop soon, pull her away. She didn’t want to, she’d die with this girl if it meant holding on to this feeling forever. But breaking it off herself would hurt less than having Hannibal do it. Hannibal stepping in would violate this angel, this holy union between heaven and hell. The thought of Will stopping her? Even worse. 

With a groan and much regret, Abigail pulled herself away from the cooling corpse of the woman. The body slumped forward onto the table, a small dribble of blood leaking onto the glossy wood. Abigail slumped on top of her, panting. She was met with a smattering of applause from Hannibal, then footsteps across the carpet. She heard her fathers’ congratulations in her ear, muffled by a dense ringing as if she heard them on a bad wax cylinder. Abigail rolled her eyes toward one voice, and met Hannibal’s loving gaze. The sight made her want to vomit.

He, or perhaps Will, rubbed slow circles into her back while the other stroked her hair. Hannibal’s lips were moving, though no words followed. Abigail waited for the dialogue placard as if it were a silent film. None ever came. Hannibal kept smiling, speaking. She turned to Will despite the dizzying effort and found the same result. 

Abigail’s expression must have betrayed her, for Will was suddenly no longer looking at her, but up and across her body, presumably to Hannibal. When she blinked again, regaining more sound and sense each time, strong arms were lifting her to a fainting couch near the hearth. When she laid her head on the armrest, Abigail saw Will’s figure return to the table at a slant. He and Hannibal were exchanging words, and Abigail could hear them, hear everything in fact, but she couldn’t make sense of it for the life of her. 

“She’s put herself into shock,” Hannibal was saying, appearing calm. “Quite normal.” 

Will shot her a worried glance. “Less like shock and more like…” He shook his head, shook the words, the thought from his mind. "I didn't think..." 

“You're an idiot if you didn't think, Will,” Hannibal stated. It made Will’s head snap toward him. “You’re married to a doctor, for God’s sake. Besides, you were the same, only you had me.”

“Could she find someone?” Will was gazing back at her now. He seemed a dark blur against the firelight. 

“Perhaps. Now come, our meals grow restless.” Hannibal flashed Will a quick, bright smile, then pressed a kiss to his temple before stepping up to the dark-haired man. 

Will took his place at the blond man’s side. They examined their kills for a moment, murmuring unintelligible nothings— likely acerbic or otherwise only funny to themselves— before Abigail watched them drain the life from the men with exacting, erotic grace. 

The men hit the table with raucous thuds, sending silverware and plates scattering and jumping. Rivulets of blood spilled from the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, trailing down his chin. Will pulled him in by the wrist and kissed him, slow and soft. Abigail sat up with a groan of disgust. 

“Really father,” she grimaced at Hannibal, “I almost wish you had killed me.”

They both started at her presence, though Abigail doubted any human would’ve seen them move. Hannibal sighed, resting a palm against Will’s chest with a light chuckle. 

“Did you enjoy your surprise, my dear?” He asked, crossing the room to stand at her side. He took her hands in his, his touch gentle and warm-cool. 

Abigail smiled, nodded. “She was beautiful.” 

Hannibal cupped her face, brushing stray hairs back to stroke her cheeks. “Don’t be afraid of your desires, my love. It’s your natural inclination.” 

He brought her head forward and leaned down, kissing her hair for a lingering moment. Those final words stuck with Abigail. _Natural inclination_. She thought of her fathers, how their overwhelming love and it’s rarity brought them to one another and her to them before they all ever realized. Could she find someone so powerful too? Someone with as much latent potential as Will that she must guide them into it as Hannibal had done? Or would they come already formed, vampire or mortal? 

Most importantly, how did Hannibal always know, before she hardly knew herself? Of course, playing marriage meant nothing— until now. Admiring the ancient statues of the goddesses far more than the men meant nothing— until now. None of it seemed significant— until she’d been practically possessed with desire for her kill. 

“You would help me, find more? To eat, or as companions?” Abigail cast her eyes up to Hannibal. Through her lashes he looked dark, imposing. 

Will sauntered to his side, immediately kneeling in front of the couch. Hannibal took a place next to her. Will balanced one arm on the side of the couch, then took Abigail’s hand with the other. Hannibal clasped her other hand and drew closer. 

“We will do anything and everything for you, _ma cher,_ ” Will whispered. “To the ends of the earth, the ends of time. We will love you always. We walk through the shadows of the valley of death together, even when we are apart.” 

Abigail froze under his touch. Her earlier proclamations of leaving seemed distant, spoken by someone else. Remembering that evening in the kitchen seemed like recalling a story one wasn’t present for, but had heard so many times it could be their own. As she felt her own brow furrow, she watched Will reflect her expression like a strange mirror. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” she told him. She turned to Hannibal in a panic. “I don’t want to leave. I didn’t mean it.”

She took Hannibal’s shirt in her fists and buried her face in his chest. Tears threatened to spill as she breathed in his scent with every dry sob. Hannibal always smelled of his surroundings, but now there was something just there, underneath the surface, something old. Smoke, rosemary, unmixed wine. Abigail recalled the way Greeks would supplicate their enemies. The act of clasping the knees in such a restrictive way and begging so basely was almost as violent as wounding the flesh. Abigail understood it then, her nerves raw, rubbing themselves to frayed nothingness against Hannibal. 

“Abigail,” his voice was low, level, sweet. “Abigail.”

He lifted her tear-streaked chin up. “We would never make you leave, never hold you to annulled promises.” 

Abigail sniffed, swiping at her tears and pausing in a miniscule shock at the sight of the watery red tears. 

“Why her?” She asked, eyes imploring Hannibal, then Will. “Why her? She was too beautiful.” 

Will brushed the loose strands of hair from her neck and pressed his forehead to her shoulder. “Did you… desire this girl, Abigail?” 

This wretched a sob from Abigail’s throat that was buried in Hannibal’s shoulder. She clasped Will’s hand in her own when he offered it, attempting not to shake quite so violently. 

“ _Mieloji,_ my love,” Hannibal whispered pet names over her like prayers. “You’ve nothing to fear. We love you, darling, do you hear me?” 

Once Abigail could lift her head to him again, she fought the tears and constant urge to burst into sobs. Residual nightmares of what _he_ would’ve done flashed across her eyes with every blink, blending reality and imagination. 

“You see him?” Hannibal asked, smoothing his thumbs across her wet face. Abigail nodded. 

“We are not, and shall never be, of that mind,” his whispers pierced her ears like ice picks, the mallet driving deeper with every syllable. He seemed to know the source of her pain and subtly cupped his hands over her ears. Abigail relaxed ever so slightly into the muffled world Hannibal created for her. 

Will knelt near her, not daring to touch her hand, though it left damp bloody handprints on her trousers. His voice was lower, softer than Hannibal’s, if that could be possible. 

“You married us,” he grinned down at the silver band, giving it a twist before smiling up at Abigail. “How could we deny you anything but unconditional love?” 

“I’m foolish?” Abigail swiped at her eyes, suddenly annoyed with Will’s tone. She wasn’t some scared dog. 

“Not at all,” Hannibal said, folding her hands into his. “Your fear is more than reasonable, particularly given that we confronted you.” He offered a small chuckle, teasing one from Abigail with a sniff. 

“We will love whoever you bring home to us, my darling girl,” Hannibal was serious again. He invited Will to join his hands with theirs with a look. 

“You have our word,” Will whispered, running his thumb over the top of Abigail’s wrist and knuckles, Hannibal’s hands brushing against them both. 

Some very long time ago, maybe even days ago, Will and Hannibal’s word might have meant nothing, if anything at all. Abigail felt the weight of the locket against her chest. Hannibal’s wedding band glinted back in matching tones from under her lashes, with Will’s silver band peaking out from the edges of the knot of their hands. Deep, unnecessary breaths brought dust and air and calm into her lungs. Abigail could hear Hannibal’s heart this close to him. It was strong and steady, with the undercurrent of Will’s alongside it. She matched her breathing to their rhythm, nevermind they shouldn’t have one in the first place. How many times had they each died and come back? Will pressed a kiss into her hair, then shifted to envelop her in a massive hug. Hannibal joined, resting his cheek on her head and tracing patterns onto her back. Perhaps this life would be the one to work out after their many failed attempts. Abigail hoped the it would be the one to hold together in this world.

* * *

Gorgeous portrait of Abigail in her Kitchen Waltz gown with her locket and Lecter dagger by [erinather](https://erinather.tumblr.com/post/642776153617301504/vampire-abigail-hobbs-credit-to-mintcastle-for)! I literally cried the first time I saw it!! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poems they read on the train are all by Keats, except for the two Hannibal and Will exchange, which are by Shelly and linked below.  
> ["Love's Philosophy" by Percy Shelley](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50262/loves-philosophy)  
> ["Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" by Percy Shelley](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45123/hymn-to-intellectual-beauty)  
>   
> The descriptions for the sarcophagi and Hannibal's explanations of them being display pieces are also completely accurate, based off my university studies of Roman art. I didn't pick a specific reference as to not remove anyone from the story, but the Met has some [wonderful examples](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!?q=roman%20sarcophagus&perPage=80&searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&offset=0&pageSize=0&era=A.D.%201-500) that give you an idea of what they could've looked like. While I'm not done with this AU, I think I am done with this specific book of their lives. Expect to see more of them under this series in various one-shots, and expect to see more Hannibal content from me. I have a lot of thoughts I'd like to unleash in fic form in the future.
> 
> So so much love again to my betas and friends for reading over before! Check them out from previous chapters if you haven't! Feel free to reach out to me on here, or [tumblr](https://mintcastle.tumblr.com) if you wanna pick my brain about vampire lore, Hannibal, Greek & Roman stuff, or just say hi! I like it when people say hi :)


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